No More Blue Skied Days
by Jay Gee Three
Summary: Bladerunner 1; the book of the film of the book - Do Androids Dream? The film is so different from the original novel, so this is a novelisation of the film. The Tyrell Corporation was not the first to develop robotics, but it became the largest corporation at that time. Rising stratospherically, and crashing just as suddenly. This story is intended to show you how and why...


This is intended as a novelisation of the film, however, I have altered most of the exact dialogue, to keep it within the intended meaning in the film, but, because of the usual copyright issues, sufficiently different from the exact wording of the film. Some other plot events have been added, and subtracted.

I do not own the characters or the events, nor do I own an artificial owl; any similiarity to real or imagined characters must surely be coincidental.

No More Blue Skied Days

PROLOGUE

Sometime, surprisingly early in the twenty-first century, The Tyrell Corporation developed the state-of-the-art in anthromorph robotics into the NeXus stage - it is a type of android that is virtually identical to a human, perhaps for that reason they're better known by the more derogatory expression - a skin.

Once robotics became the 'next big thing', the talking point of the age, everyone wanted to have one; whether that was among the population - consumers - or among producers; such was the rate of development once all the constituent technologies had achieved a sufficient level of sophistication. All sorts of companies entered the marketplace that had never even been in technology before, and the cycle of creation and destruction turned another revolution; companies rose and fell with remarkable rapidity as an innovation by one producer drove out the older innovations - and then they were driven out in their turn by the next break-through innovation.

The Tyrell Corporation was certainly not the first to develop robotics, but it became the largest corporation at that time. Rising stratospherically, and crashing just as suddenly. This story is intended to show you how. Perhaps it may act as a cautionary tale.

It was because of the simulation of human life that they achieved, and they developed the NeXus generation at a time that it was needed by the human race. In their, or should I say, in _our _development off-Earth. Like evolution itself, the evolution of knowledge in this case, The Tyrell Corporation and the NeXus adapted and survived, and superseded previous forms.

When Tyrell developed their NeXus they made something that was markedly superior to all the previous generations, being at least equal, if not superior, to the bio-designers who devised them. It was the much talked-about, much hoped for (by some), much feared (by others), 'cross-over', the big X in the middle of their name was an indication of this point being reached, it was the point where the Reps surpassed humans, and could go onward and design themselves, design their own successors.

They were made primarily for off-Earth use, as labourers, in the ever hazardous task of resource exploitation of 'hard rock', of the planets, moons, asteroid and meteors of the solar system. But they were also assigned other roles too, including security, combat auxilliaries, and combat primaries. You would think there was a massive amount of solar system to go round, but the costs of capturing, and redirecting the relatively small, hard, but very valuable, rocks - and settling them in earth orbit in readiness for stripping them - were so great in the initial investment stage, that there was a territorial war going on. Largely because off-Earth law simply hadn't caught up with off-Earth events.

In time, there was a mutiny by a NeXus combat group on a mining colony, where they had used the tools at hand as weapons; they were declared illegal on-Earth, as it is in the Heavens. That didn't stop them trying to get to Earth though. When they came here they were known as Replicants, because they were so close in their appearance to humans that they were, practically, replicas.

It was deemed necessary to set up squads to detect them when they did come to Earth. These squads became known as blade runners, largely because of the dangers they undertook to take the Replicants on; it was as though they were running along something as narrow as a knife blade, there was no room for error, and for the Bladerunners a small error was the difference between living and being killed. Alongside them developed the business of freelance bounty hunters who competed with the bladerunners.

But whether they were a Bladerunner or a bounty-hunter, they were all licensed to shoot-to-kill the replicants that were found on-Earth, inhuman, and unhuman, found trespassing here.

This was never known as execution, or termination, or assassination, nor was it known as murder - you can't murder what isn't _really_ alive, after all. It went by the very innocuous euphimism of - retirement.

I

When night fell - and it started to darken from mid-afternoon on most days at any time of the year - the street lights and the lights in homes and offices stretched all the way to the horizon, or, at least, as far as the hills that hemmed the city in. Within this thin spread of lights there were, all around, brighter clusters of lights which shone like mini galaxies where the multiple centres of this vast broadly spread city had reformed.

But there were spaces between the spread of these lights. The blackness inbetween was the place where, what had once been, the sprawling cities and suburbs of San Francisco and Oakland and Paulo Alto. They had shrunk down to these gatherings of peoples in the semi-devastated remains of the post-World War Four world, now known simply as WarFour.

Between these clusters of lights flew other lights, like meteorites burning up in the atmosphere. These were likewise small and fast moving. The air-hazard lights on the occasional heli-car and sky-taxi as they moved from one of these clusters to another.

Amongst these air-bourne craft was a police vehicle, its red and blue lights shone in a steady state on the vehicles roof and underside indicating it was not on an emergency flight. It was occupied by Dave Holden and in the semi-darkness of mid-afternoon, it was just after 4pm, he read by an in-cabin light. He was a bounty hunter, a freelancing free-agent. That meant most of his day was spent on day-work, one-off tasks, 'as-and-when', which was contracted-out by the law enforcement agencies, the police, the courts, which he bid for, daily, using the app, Daily-Grind; but he also did other private-enterprise work. And that included android hunting. Androids would sometimes escape to Earth, moreso just lately.

On this occasion Holden was working for the SFPD, San Francisco Police Department, hence the taxi-ride in the police heli-craft. As he read the details in the incident report he wondered if there would come a day when THEY, the Replicants, would be testing THEM, the humans. He shuddered. Moreso, since the human treatment of the Replicants had been, over the past decade, so murderous - there was no other way of putting it. And especially so with the advent of the NeXus generations.

Once, there had been no need for blade runners. Before the Replicants, there were androids, true, but they had all been simple enough. They always followed the orders of their human owners-masters. For the more squeamish owners, and there were many of them, they never referred to themselves as owners, let alone as masters, they thought of themselves as the 'sponser' of these human replicas.

Dave Holden looked around, scanning the horizon. Off to his left he saw the fire plumes bursting and burning-off the excess gases from the San Francisco Aviation-Fuel Company refinery. It was their twenty-fours a day work that kept him as one of the relatively few vehicles still in the air. But the company had revealed they were cutting back their work hours to only eighteen hours a day, four days of the week. The oil to refine was becoming ever scarcer.

He was travelling to The Tyrell Corporation's large pyramidial head office up in the hills around Paulo Alto for the same reason he had been making this trip for the past two years, so the view was anything but unfamiliar. And he was making his way to Tyrell's yet again for the same old reason, another employee was suspected of being a NeXus-Five infiltrator, and Don Holder was to administer the Voight-Kampff Empathic Test, with Altered Scale.

His heli-car crested the dark, unpopulated blankness of the hill and immediately behind, in the valley, stood the large head office of The Tyrell Corporations, brightly lit like a Christmas tree, its pyramidial shape accentuated that appearance and effect.

II

Part of the test protocol was to administer the test on a suspect subject as part of a group. The preferable number was a group of five or more but it was acceptable to use only three. In this respect it worked a little like a police line-up for witnesses to identify a suspect, but that was where the similarity ended. The Voight-Kampf test was a complex and sophisticated method based on empathic response to identify the imposter in the group. Unlike a police line-up, it was a blind test, the tester didn't know who the suspect was, but had to identify it from their interpretation of the test results.

A space had been set-up in a small corporate-grey cubicle in a room full of small corporate-grey cubicles. They had been cleared to allow the testing process, the interviews, to take place away from the hub-bub of the usual working day.

Don Holden had already completed one test on a subject named Joe Handy. As the testee left the cubicle Holden completed a few notes on the him on his pad and picked up his mug of, now tepid, synthetic-coffee and took a sip. He gave a bitter little grimace as he did so. He could still remember when coffee was the genuine article, not just a warm liquid with a coffee-flavour added. He completed his notes. He was content with his initial analysis. The first of the group of testees was a 'blank', he was not the suspect. He checked the time and saw that it had taken less than fifteen minutes to ascertain this.

What little light there had been in the sky in mid-afternoon had faded to a faint glow off to the west, over the hillside. The remaining light illuminated the constant fine, low-level radioactive dust that hung in the air, regardless of the constantly operating air-conditioning system. This dust was always drifiting in the air outdoors. The only respite was when it rained. It rained a lot more than it used to, pre-WarFour. And when it rained it rained much more heavily. The Earth's temperature had increased, that had reduced the ice floes by 25%, there was more moisture in the atmosphere; all the moisture evaporating off the Pacific Ocean coalesced on the dust that had been thrown up into the mid-layers of the atmosphere during the war, it all caused - rain. San Francisco got a lot of rain; every day, every night.

The other outcome, paradoxically, was a general trend toward lower temperatures, and a, projected, new ice age; all that dust in the upper atmosphere was blocking, and reflecting, sunlight away from the surface; but, for now, for the generation that had survived the war, they experienced hot, wet, _humid_ conditions; rainforest weather, but in a city. For now, though, the rain suppressed the dust, while bringing it down to ground level. But when the rain stopped and it dried, there were always thick accumulations of coagulated dust in the streets lying like islands in a dried-up desert riverbed. It was the city's responsibility to collect the dust in insulated trucks and take it to be dumped in deep pits that ringed the city several miles out. The constant rains aided the post-WarFour clean-up of the atmosphere. It also meant that there was a small added number of people that died of radiation poisoning each year.

Dave Holden stood and took a few paces back and forth in the small space within the work cubicle. He took another sip from the mug, then drank down the remains. He looked at the dark brown undissovled powdery dregs at the bottom of the mug, swilled them around once, and set the mug down on the desk. He sat down again and leant toward the I.C. console to ask for the next testee to be sent in.

The ceiling-fans spun slowly, moving the dust about, rather than clearing it.

The testing apparatus looked simple enough but it did what was required. It directed a broad cross-beam of lights into the eye. It measured the response time of the reflexive movements in the eye muscles. Test subjects were given a series of hypothetical situations and their reaction was represented on a series of gauges, a screen, and by a graphical representation. What was a reflexive action in humans was delayed, almost imperceptably, in the Replicants. A designed-in feature to allow identification. He knew he was looking for a late generation NeXus. From this process it could be deduced, by an experienced tester, if the subject was a Replicant. In this case he was looking for a NeXus-Five, designated as male.

The next test subject arrived at the cubicle. Don Holden stood up again and shook hands with him, he introduced himself and checked that he was speaking to Leon Polokov. Polokov pricked Holden's interest. He had a large build. Minaturisation had affected the build of the Replicants, but not so much that they were actually miniature. They were all slightly larger than average. Polokov was definitely larger than average. Holden hoped that the rest of the test group would be a bit larger than the first of this group - just to make the testing process more interesting. Joe Handy had been slightly smaller than average and it was highly improbable that his body shape could contain the bionics of the muscle pack required for the hard life of lifting and grafting of the off-world labourer.

Polokov had opened the top half of the light disposable paper overalls that the clean-room researchers wore over their inner cover-alls. Holden sat down and pushed the button on a cigarette-tube to 'light' it, then drew in the nicotine and let the smoke-vapour flow slowly out of his lungs and he watched it as it changed it's wispy shapes as it rose in the air. Even substitute cigarettes remained too much of a luxury to offer around to anyone but the closest, intimate friends.

'Please take a seat, Mr Polokov,' he said gesturing at the high-backed chair with the Tyrell logo embossed in the plastic back. Polokov started to sit down in a chair next to him and Holden indicated that he had to sit on the opposite side of the table. When he had sat down Don Holden aligned the apparatus to Polokov's height, so that the light beam would shine directly into his eye on a horizontal course. Polokov eyed the testing equipment with apprehension.

'This is a test? I-I didn't know. I thought it was a 'getting-to-know-you' interview. Y'know, what with being a new worker here. I get a bit nervy taking tests,' Polokov said as he shifted in the chair.

'There's no need to be. Just relax,' Holden said to reassure him. Most of the people in the test groups said something similiar, so he knew he was offering false assurance in some cases. He added, a little more sharply, 'And I need you to sit quite still. But relaxed while I get this focused on your pupil.'

'Y'know I've just had a test, when I joined Tyrell. Why do they need to do another one so...?'

Don Holden interrupted him. 'This isn't a test for Tyrell. It isn't anything to do with the company, Mr Polokov. I always check if anyone in the sample group has been tested recently. This is a random test, you must have heard of them, for drug and alcohol misuse. The reaction time is important, so I need you to listen carefully and respond as soon as possible.'

'OK,' said Polokov. 'I'm sure I can do that, as long as the questions are easy enough.'

'It's a test, not a quiz. Answer as you feel...'

Holden drew another lungful of vaporised-smoke from his cigarette-tube before he started, breathed it out and watched the smoke again as it spiralled up to the ceiling. He glanced through the pre-set questions that were printed on individual cards, but started by checking Polokov's home address. Started with something simple to answer truthfully, as though it were an old-style lie detector.

Polokov confirmed the address, then asked, 'Have we started?'

'Yes. I always start with something anyone ought to be able to answer without thinking about it.'

'I've only moved in recently.'

'What?' asked Holden.

'My place. It ain't nothin' fancy. It's just a temporary place that I'm staying in. Well, more like a single room, really. I'm between places more permanent.'

Holden looked across at Polokov as though to judge whether it was worth saying anything in reply. He ignored it. Instead he started to put a scenario to him.

'I want you to think of being out in a desert. The sand is burning your feet...'

'We've started?' asked Polokov. He spoke in a lazy drawl. 'This is the test?'

'Yes. So I need you to pay attention.' He repeated the introduction to the scenario, 'You look at your feet and you see a...'

Polokov interrupted again, 'Is there any particular desert that I'm supposed to be in?'

Holden stopped and looked at the test subject, 'Huh?' he said, but otherwise wordlessly.

'The desert? Which one is it?'

'It hardly matters. There's no need to think about it literally.'

'But how can I picture it if I don't know which one it is.'

'Do you know all the deserts on earth?'

'Well, no, but...' He hesitated, before recommencing. 'Why would I be in a desert?'

''Who knows? That doesn't matter either. Perhaps you're bored, or feel the need to be by yourself. Let's just say you'd come in on a shuttle from off-Earth and wanted to be alone for a change, away from any kind of crowds,' Holden said in an amiable manner. He continued, 'You look at your feet, and you see... a tortoise.'

'Huh? What's that?'

'You don't know what a tortoise is?'

Polokov shook his head and shifted in the chair again.

'Please sit still,' said Holden. 'You'd know a turtle though?'

Polokov nodded his head.

'They're similiar, but smaller.'

'Then why is it called a tortoise, and not a turtle?'

Holden drew on his cigarette-tube again and put it down so that it rested on the lip of a chipped, cracked and glued together again, saucer with the Tyrell logo embossed on it, that had once been used as an ashtray.

'Alright. They're not exactly the same, but they're similiar. In the same way that trees are similiar but there are different species and all have different names. There aren't many tortoises left now, anyway. One of the benefits brought to us by the last war. OK?' He glanced across at Polokov. Polokov nodded. Holden noticed that his expression was sullen. He continued again with the test scenario, 'Then you bend down and you turn it over, so it is lying on its back.'

'Why would I do that?' Polokov asked.

'That is the point of the question...'

Polokov seemed to ignore the answer and asked another question of his own instead. 'That's just cruel. Who would come up with a question like that? Was it you, Mr Holden?'

Holden, in turn, ignored Polokov's interruption. 'It is now lying on its back, and it's underside is baking. You can see how it's beating its legs around, trying to turn back over. But it... can't. It needs you to help it.' Don Holden was giving a text-book rendition of the question, keeping the sentences short. Terse. Adding a little inflection to his voice. 'Why aren't you helping? All you have to do is stoop down again and turn it right side up. That's all. But you're not doing that. Why?'

'Why wouldn't I help it?' Polokov said, agitation showing in his voice-print and face. He seemed to be nervously rubbing the uppers of his thighs under the table. But Holden was watching the image of his eye, the graphic read-out revealed a time-lapse in his empathic response. There was a time-lapse, but not as long as it ought to be, not for any Replicant he had ever encountered before. He pressed the point. 'As far as I can see you're still not helping,' he repeated. 'Why, Leon? Why?'

The testing apparatus gave a steady beeping sound.

Polokov sat silently, he broke eye contact for a moment before looking back at Holden. Polokov wasn't relaxed in his posture. He seemed genuinely agitated at hearing the scenario. As though he were being accused.

Holden picked up his cigarette-sub tube again and drew shortly on it and looked across the table at Polokov. He adopted a friendly manner. 'Since you ask, the questions are devised by others. I just read them, and read the response gauges. This is a test designed to provoke a response.' He paused. 'That is, an _emotional_ response.'

'Why?'

'Huh?'

'Why does it have to provoke an emotional response?'

'You must know why. There has been a decades long problem of workers turning on their co-workers with automatic weapons...'

'I know about that, but so what if someone is completely indifferent to what happens to a tortoise. What does the test prove then?'

'It is known that people who are cruel to animals are also cruel to other people; besides, I've only started, Mr Polokov, there are many other scenarios to go through. The test is a way of trying to ensure that work colleagues have an stable emotional state. The same questions are put to everybody, so that we have a uniform test, no matter how many times it is performed.' Holden gave a little nod toward the apparatus shining the light into his eye.

Polokov still looked ill at ease, he leaned forward in the chair.

'Shall we go on?' said Holden. He was wary, there was something peruliar in this subject's manner, something not quite right, something that the test wouldn't reveal, but a Bladerunner's hunch did. He leant forward in his seat and discreetly, as though he were scratching his leg, unholstered the gun he kept at his ankle and laid it in his lap.

The test subject gave a very slight nod.

'I would like you to name only the best characterisitics of...' Dan Holder shuffled the last question-card to the bottom of the pack and read the next card, '...your mother.'

Polokov looked quizzical.

Holder prompted him. 'Your mother. Tell me about her,' he said, as he made a quick note on the screen about the change of scenario card. He was still looking at what he was writing as Polokov said. 'Let me tell you about my mother...' Holden noted the hardening tone of the subject's voice and glanced up from the screen, as Polokov moved his arm swiftly, uncannily, unhumanly, swiftly, and shot Holden from under the table.

Holden's swivel chair span round at the force of the impact and he slumped against the back wall. Polokov stood up and fired three more times through the back of the chair. The impacts pushed Holden off the chair and he lay in an ungainly heap, seemingly lifeless, against the wall.

Leon pressed the gun back down into his waistband, pulled his paper overalls up to conceal it. He walked around to the side of the table where Don Holden was slumped against the wall.

'Did I pass the test?' Polokov asked sarcastically as he walked past his sprawled body and left the room at a fast walking pace.

III

The automated novelty arachnid-shaped advertising blimp drifted overhead, the low-power motors purred quietly, as a contented cat does, as it navigated its pre-programmed path through the high towers of the new San Francisco city centre that had been built to the south side of the old Candlestick Park. A pre-recorded voice boomed down on the crowded streets below. It cycled through its programme of adverts and advertorial. First, it was Jimmy Bream's Synthetic Sour Mash Bourbon, complete with equally synthetic pictures of people in eighteenth century dress in the streets of the Old Quarter of New Orleans - long since disappeared under water. Although the city of New San Francisco did have its own re-creation of, and recreational, version of Bourbon Street. A short advert encouraging the adoption of the CyberDime currency came on followed immediately by another for the competing system, Way-2-Pay. Next, was an a piece of advertorial for one of the specialist artificial animal and pet manufacturers, Mr Macawber's Most Marvellous Menagerie. More smiling faces. Various children were being presented with kittens and puppies, lambs and ponies, half-sized swans, a baby seal or a penguin. And adults were thrilled to recieve a parrot, an artificial owl, even a boa constricitor that immediately wound its way around its new owner.

Philip Deckard was in KoreaTown for lunch. Nothing fancy. There wasn't much that could be described as fancy left in KoreaTown - post-war there wasn't much fancy about anything, anywhere. He had known straightaway, when he had first seen this advertorial, that each of the adults in it were MX5s, proving his contention that most people couldn't recognise the new lines in Reps that were being released off-Earth. The programme-advertorial ran for ten minutes.

Then there was an infommercial for the Tyrell Corporation. Their, otherwise, reclusive founder-genius Doctor Eldon Tyrell propounded on the direction of the next generation of humanoid-androids as though nothing had gone wrong with their most recent releases.

'How about sorting out the last lot you made, and try to get them to stop killing people,' Deckard thought to himself. He glanced up, although he knew the infommercial well enough, he knew something quite funny was about to happen. A couple of rather comical stabs at an appearance of a human being stood beside Doctor Tyrell, of the old MM4 model type. Then they walked away, jumped up and started to dance together. They always seemed to get them to look almost human, but never quite human enough, thought Deckard. It gives us something to shoot at, I suppose. He corrected himself into the past tense, it once gave me something to shoot at. He had a practised eye for these things, and consequently it was a jaded eye. He also knew that, unlike him, most people on-Earth could hardly tell the difference when the next generation had come along. There were rumours that circulated about the presence, or widespread use, on-Earth, of the replicants, regardless of the Declaration of Illegality. Conspiracy theories abounded, accelerated by rumours, as usual; but that had long since been added to by the manufacturers themselves, to deliberately obfuscate the matter, so they could dismiss all of the rumours as just another wild-fire conspiracy theory.

By the time the blimp was over Korea Town, it was broadcasting the off-world colonies information promo, as though all the people who wanted to leave Earth hadn't already left for the planetary colonies - and most of the people still on-Earth would never pass the test to leave now anyway. But still, it boomed out regardless. A voice filled with bright, sunny - implausible - optimism.

'Emmigrate to a bright world. Live off-Earth, in a sunlight-drenched land of constant possibilities. A land of new adventure. There is no better place to start than Mars-One to acclimatise. Discover new lands, meet new people. Think of it. Can you imagine it? You, and your new friendship-groups, and with a Tyrell NeXus too. Or another one of your own choice. For an extra charge, perhaps try a bespoke option...'

It was as if it was intended to taunt, and cause resentment, to the remaining Earth-bound population.

As it passed directly overhead he looked up and saw, on each side of the blimp, two large screens showing more smiling people in clean clothes in bright off-world colony streets. Although he had never been off-Earth, he knew, for a _fact - _or so he had been told - the streets on the mining colonies, at least, might have looked like that when they were first built, but they were so clogged with rock-dust that they didn't look anything like that now, and everyone wore dark grey and dun non-colours to hide the dust on their clothes. They were all upside down from where he was viewing them. 'The world turned upside down', thought Deckard. 'That just about sums it all up.'

It drifted off behind the 'Sunrise Tower', he filled in the fading sound of the infommercial's message that had bored itself into his mind through constant repetition. 'The off-Earth subsidy is never closed. Get in touch with your local office, toll-free, to find out if you qualify. Or drop into your local branch office.' Deckard pictured the local branch office in his mind's eye. It was a dust covered, long-since closed, fire-bombed, shell with metal sheets welded to the frontage.

Korea Town was one of the various areas of San Francisco that had long since become a part of Asia. The city had been colonised by people from the other side of the Pacific. Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam had all come off especially badly in the war. All their major cities had been devastated. San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Anchorage and Vancouver had all become something like permanent refugee camps since national borders had, after the last War, ceased being pourous and had largely dissolved. There was always talk of repatriation - it was over twenty years since the end of the war, and those countries weren't going to rebuild themselves - but nothing much had come of it. Chinese had not been allowed to enter, all except the ethnically Chinese Vietnamese; the Chinese had been deemed, by worldwide public opinion, to be responsible for the outbreak.

It was raining. As it had been, constantly, for the past three days. People, mostly Koreans and Japanese - unlike most Deckard could tell the difference - moved about the neon-razzled street as he awaited his food order from the road-side cafe opposite. The pedestrians walked along the sidewalk in left and right streams, many of them holding the neon-stalked umbrellas that were especially useful when you turned off the main thoroughfares into the underlit sidestreets. They glowed in cool-blues or pastel pinks. A couple of young women dressed as geishas held a rose-blossom coloured neon-umbrella between them and half-talked, half-giggled to each other as they passed Deckard.

It was an old pre-Continental War area, with a lot of narrow streets crammed together. This part of town was always busy. Deckard liked that. Too many parts of San Francisco were deserted, or seemed to be. Even as a refugee-choked city, and a half-wreaked one at that, there were large under-populated areas; many of the pre-war population had moved to the new-built cities inland. It felt good to be in this crush of humanity, that was why Deckard always came here to eat. He couldn't understand those people who spoke of the lonely crowd - of the feeling of loneliness in a crowd. He liked to meet people; admittedly, he did have to - sometimes - immediately shoot them; but, needs-must.

He was one of the people who still read the hardcopy - the paper - version of the SF Weekly Chronicler, so he read his copy while he waited for his order. He leant against a brightly lit shopfront selling a mixture of the latest electronic goods imported from off-Earth, but mainly it was the second-hand, third-hand, fourth-hand and modified goods that were made on-Earth, local producers improvising low-cost alternatives from spares, refurbished and recovered components.

San Francisco, as with many of the cities that had partially survived the War, was a place of both high-technology and low decay. Despite all the high-technology, most gadgets and instruments and tools were left-overs from before the last war. Some were gaffa-jobs, creations made from yesterdays latest technology and were todays latest discards. Some people had the best gadgets from the off-Earth auto-manufacturies and made a point of being amongst the first that acquired them, but most people simply got by with what they could find.

There was a news story about a shooting at The Tyrell Corporation that had caught Deckard's eye. He had noticed that there had been several shootings at their offices in the past year. He suspected that it was a Replicant, but he wasn't looking to tangle with them ever again, not since he had walked away from being a bladerunner. He wasn't missing it.

Zui-Lee ran the cafe on the opposite side of the street, he was an old, old Japanese man - who looked as old as time itself, but he was not as old as he appeared, it was radiation sickness that had caused his premature ageing - he had made up Deckard's order and he called him over; his order was ready. One useful function that newspapers served that gadgets didn't was they made good substitutes for an umbrella when they weren't being read. He closed the paper, put it over his head and dashed into the street. A car horn sounded and he looked round to see the crowd in the road parting quickly as a car, fashioned after an old 1960s Edsel model, emerged quickly through the crowd. It just missed Deckard. 'Asshole,' he muttered under his breath.

At the cafe he had ordered dim sum, chilli noodle soup and prawns (it was really fish shavings and other discards reconstitued and shaped into a prawn-like form with an artificial prawn flavouring. Real prawns cost a fortune, as most real things did). He picked a pair of recycled plastic, wood effect chopsticks out of the dispenser and sat down. He crossed and recrossed the chopsticks, as two sword-fencers would do with their swords. Zui-Lee passed the bowl to him.

Deckard looked at the bowl and plate and objected.

'Hey. Where's my four dim sum?'

'Three!' said Zui-Lee.

'Four,' Deckard insisted.

'The announcement, yesterday. A maximum of three per person, per day. You know that.'

'Ah!' Deckard said. There had been a public service announcement about the availability of food, but they were so common he had only half noticed it. It had immediately slipped his mind. He quickly speared a dim sum and started to eat. He looked at the price board and noticed the three dim sum were the same price as four had been. Food was scant and scarce - and expensive. The cost of living was expensive, the cost of getting off-Earth was expensive, the constant need to pay bribes to get anything done was expensive, the cost of bullets was expensive, even the cost of dying was expensive. Everything was expensive. Everything except accomodation, since so many people had relocated away from the city.

Another novelty blimp came over, this one was a slick blue-silver disk, it looked rigid but was made of a soft polydiaethadiadum material that held the gas that kept it afloat - it was fashioned in the shape of an idea of a flying saucer as they were imagined in 1950s films - the disc ringed the power rotors set in its centre. The otherwise sleek lines were ruined by the four large screens attached to it. The advertorial droned on as it moved overhead, '...so come on. Let's get out of the gloom-room and let's get ahead, into the zoom-room...' The next advert started, the sound fading as it drifted behind the buildings on that street. 'The Canadian Tundra is a stunning and sunny situation for your vacation, where clean air and water have _almos_t been entirely re-established...'

Since we have so much rain, why can't the rain get into these things and short-curcuit the screens, Deckard thought. He pictured this one popping with the flashing, flying sparks of a short curcuit, showering the street and crashing in flames, preferably as it drifted over the harbour. Now _that _would be a really useful service, rather than the advertorial, infommercials and "messages from sponsors".

Deckard ate. Swilling the noodles around the bowl and catching them in his chopsticks and shovelling them into his mouth, the chilli flavouring stung. He liked his chilli noodles hot, and these were _hot_. He smiled across at Zui-Lee, and with his mouth still full, murmured, 'Good, good,' and nodded again at Zui-Lee. Zui-Lee smiled his old, old smile back at him.

Deckard wasn't like so many of the peolple nowadays. Eating as a leisure activity had become a thing of the past. He didn't eat his food as fast as possible. As though it might be stolen if he didn't eat faster - and that happened. People were mugged for food. Whatever is valuable is worth stealing. But Deckard had a kind of presence that many people wouldn't want to tangle with. Although not old, his face showed, more than most, the years of harsh experience. Not just the post-War hardships., but also his WarFour service, and something of his police service; before he had turned to freelancing, serving outstanding warrents. With auto I.D., it was so much simpler than it had been. It didn't pay so well, but there was a much lower chance of being shot. He reckoned he had done his part in the hopeless task of stemming the flow of slayings and slaughter that people perpetrated on each other at any time. Especially in a time of constant hardship lived against a background of devastation and decay. For some, the knowledge, or just the suspicion, that among all this there were those who lived amongst them, the off-world rejectees mostly, who had nonetheless accumulated dizzying wealth, caused them to reach for their gun and hunt them.

In truth, there was much more slaughter in San Francisco in a typical year than there had been in the three years of the 'Sparticus' rebellion. People didn't like the idea thast these 'helpmates' would ocassionally attempt to kill them. People aren't Replicants, and there is still some slim expectation of a fair trial. Human pride, desire, jealousy, greed, envy, acquisitiveness, and general venality can't be eradicated by a simple Declaration of Illegality.

These wealthy people made their money as of old - by any means possible, or by any means neccesary; hoping to bribe their way off-Earth. Or so Deckard presumed; he knew that every so often one of the big old houses in the hills would become vacant, so it must be working. It was these people that the banditti wanted to get at, but they were wealthy enough to employ small armies of personal security. The only way to get at them was to band together into ever larger groups of banditti, so you could at least match the private security in numbers. Once that happened the private security upped their fire-power. The advantage for the wealthy was that the bands of banditti tended to break-up when there were too many bosses in their coalitions, these break-ups were often accompanied by slaughter. San Francisco had its own localised arms-race going on and Deckard had been supposed to police it. Single-handedly, as it had sometimes seemed to him. Until he quit.

Even amongst the dizzying wealthy there were those who were among the many leftovers who hadn't passed the test to get to off-Earth. Everyone living off-Earth had to justify the oxygen supply they were using up. That was why the test was especially stringent. If you can't pass the test, you can't leave. Sometimes it was just easier to stay on-Earth. Of the entire re-burgeoning Earth-based population - that was close to the pre-War global figure - there was only a little under half-a-million living off-Earth, dispersed around various boroughs around the solar system, most of those boroughs were stations that were very close to Earth though.

He heard the sound of a police heli-craft above and behind him. He still had an instinct to check his scanner for information on their call-out but he ignored it. He opened up his newspaper and started reading it again as he speared the second of his three legally alloted, legally enforced, dim sum and continued eating. He had been eating and reading for a few minutes when he felt a sharp tap on his shoulder and he glanced around at the unwelcome sight of a uniformed officer to his right.

'You have to come with me.'

Deckard ignored him and supped at his noodle bowl. This time the uniformed officer shoved him in his back.

'I said, you have to come with me.'

'I heard. You can see I'm eating. Have you never heard the saying about never getting between a man and his meal. Besides, you can't arrest me, I'm SFPD,' Deckard said in a sardonic manner. Police were always being arrested for bribery, off-the-books murders, private enterprise political and industrial assassinations. Deckard glanced back at the uniform and added, facetiously, 'Besides, you're not my type.'

'You used to be SFPD, but not anymore,' the uniform said.

At his left shoulder came another voice. This one spoke in a strange patois of broken, smashed-up languages - French, Brazilian-Portugese, Japanese, Korean - that some people had adopted, since so many people lived beyond their own borders.

'Monsieur Deckard, Herr Bryant wants vous. Come, avec mois.'

He looked round and saw the pock-marked face of Gaff still with the pencil moustache that was current a few years back, a fashion retread from some old period. Deckard knew him by sight but didn't know much about him. He had arrived from LA just before Deckard had quit the SFPD. He was their best man but had been transferred to San Francisco since it became clear the NeXus arriving on-Earth were heading straight for The Corporation. Deckard saw that he was leaning on a cane with a silver-coloured dragonhead tip. He didn't have that six months ago, thought Deckard.

'Huh?'

'Lo-fa. You're wanted. _You're needed._' Gaff's tone was insistent.

'Yeah, yeah.' Deckard said. 'Well. Since you're asking nicely.' He indicated over at Zui-Lee that he wanted a cardboard carton to put the remains of his meal into.

The uniform got hold of his elbow. 'C'mon, lets move!' he said.

'I'm coming,' Deckard replied shrugging off his grip, 'you can see that.'

A look from Gaff got the uniform to back away half a step, but no more.

Deckard poured the contents of the bowl into the ToGo carton and tipped the uneaten prawn and dim sum into it. He stood up and looked at the uniform and at Gaff.

'So, what is it that Bryant wants that you can't handle?' he said to Gaff.

Gaff shook his head sorrowfully, as though he really meant it, and held out his cane, seemingly showing off a new talent he had acquired. 'Shot in the line of duty.'

'Oh, yeah?'

'Now it's your turn,' Gaff added.

'Oh. No, no.' Deckard said, 'I'm not coming back for anymore of _that_. That,' Deckard indicated Gaff's leg, 'is why I quit,' and he turned back to sit down. 'And I intend to stay quit.'

Gaff tapped his leg with the dragonhead of his cane. 'You quit, Deckard. But you've still got eighteen months reserve service to do. You won't be going to the colonies now - until you complete your reserve. You won't pass the test. Never, not with the course credits required. You _need_ the citizen-credits to top up your service record.'

'You're going to hold that over me?' Deckard asked.

The uniform got hold of him but Deckard shrugged his grip off again. 'I can walk. Unaided,' he said with another sardonic twist, glancing down at Gaff. He indicated Gaff's leg to the uniform by a nod of the head, 'Help the _lame_. Help _him_.'

Pointless arguing with these two ponies, he thought. I'll hammer it out with Bryant. Since he is insisting on my company.

They walked away down the street.

'Where are you parked?'

'Up on the Sunrise-Alliance Tower.'

'Ah, right. I heard you flying in. Didn't take you too long to find me.'

'You're always as Zui-Lee's at this time. It wasn't difficult to find you,' Gaff said. Deckard shrugged, unslung the semi-rigid kit-bag off his shoulder and put the 'ToGo' carton, with his meal, into it.

'This is why I get indigestion,' he said as he licked the chopsticks and tucked them into his jacket's breast pocket.

'No. It's the hot-chilli and the sim-prawns that give you the indigestion,' Gaff said, 'Now, come along.'

They walked half a block to the Sunrise-Alliance Building. It was an office block that had been built in the old town. It dated from about 2014 and had somehow survived the last war. "The last war". Would there ever be a time when the expression 'the last' could be capitalised as 'the Last War?' The last war that was ever fought? Deckard supposed not; if there ever was, he also thought, it would be the one that extinguished life for good.

Back when the Sunrise had been built it had the fastest express elevators, and unlike most pre-war technology, they still worked as well as ever. As a consequence, the roof of the building was used as a heli-port, because it had four express cars and each was a rapid vertical-transport system in its own right. On the roof they dashed out into the rain and the department heli-craft pilot-driver opened the door for them as they approached and Gaff and Deckard climbed in. The pilot called-in to SF Air-Xchange that he was taking-off and informed them of his destination and course.

He got clearance and the pilot-driver pressed forward on the control column to set the counter-rotating double micro-rotors in motion; they rose in pitch as they revved-up and the heli-car rose slightly and tilted forward and moved over the lip of the roof. Deckard re-experienced that sense of vertigo he always did when taking-off from a roof-top pad as he looked down the sheer twenty-five storeys to the street. He saw the advertorial-blimp rounding the building below. He closed his eyes for a few moments until the pilot brought the nose up and they turned, rising into the air-lane. He opened them again and noticed Gaff looking at him quizzically. SF-X chattered away in the cabin, instructing the pilot-driver, 'Climb to 1500 and maintain, lower traffic stream. Join eastward traffic at the Double Star Tower.'

As they flew the short distance to the precinct to avoid the traffic-choked streets, especially during the shift changes around the middle of the day, Deckard noticed that the emergency lights were rotating and casting their lurid-red and cool-blue light downward through the clear roof throughout the heli-car's cab.

'This is a taxi-ride surely? Not an emergency,' asked Deckard.

'You'll see,' said Gaff, and looked away over into the distance towards the old San Francisco city centre. The low light was dimly glinting on the water that had flooded the A-bomb crater, the one that missed the target and hit the harbour and wreaked the Bay Bridge.

Deckard looked out the other window as the heli-craft continued its slow turn in its rise from the roof in the direction of his old precinct building. The familiar face of the Japanese woman, made-up in the old-style geisha make-up, projected onto the giant screen set on the Independence Insurance Building, which seemed to glow in the half-light like an animated illuminated script in an old bible, was putting the supplementary nourishment pill in her mouth and smiling before sipping at a glass of milk-substitute, the type made from soya and which tasted nothing like real milk.

It was only a few minutes from the Sunrise Building to the precinct but Deckard took out the meal-carton and started to eat his, now extra soggy rather than extra crisp, noodles with dim sum. But almost immediately after he swallowed the first mouthful he felt his stomach lurch. A secondary vertigo reaction. And anyway, he could see the part reconstructed stumps of the NineEleven Memorial Towers through the mid-day hazy gloom. Right round the west tower and it was a vertical descent onto the precinct roof. He put the carton away again. A perfectly disgusting dinner, utterly ruined, he thought.

The pilot called in to the SF Air-Xchange again for permission to approach for descent and received instant clearance while other craft rotated in the stack. It occurred to Deckard that this meeting could be important. The craft pitched forward into the descent and the pilot reliquished control as the 'auto' flew the last two hundred feet down on to the low roof of the precinct building.

The building was at the corner of Sunset Avenue and McKinley-Lunar Boulevard. It was a partial shell used in one half as a stock exchange for skin, organ, hair and blood-bank trading (the SOHB X-change; hence the expression, "everyone has a SOHB story"). It seemed odd that a trade that could easily be conducted without face-to-face contact, a trade in something so bizarre and sometimes grotesque, had retained the outward appearence of the gregariousness of a trading floor. The other half of the building that fronted onto Sunset was the police precinct. Deckard emerged from the elevator into the large high-ceilinged booking-hall. He walked quickly past the open plan grid of desks on the familiar route to where Bryant had his office. Gaff sauntered along behind him.

Bryant's office was in the corner and was an enclosed space made of oakwood and glass. Deckard didn't knock, he barged in through the office door and swung the door vigorously behind him so it slammed loudly, rattling the glass and the venetian blinds.

Bryant looked up and saw it was who he expected, who he was waiting for. He smiled.

'Come in,' he said, he waited a moment then added, 'and please close the door after you.'

Deckard's expression hardly changed but Bryant could see the small fleeting smile he gave through his scowl. They knew each other well, knew how to annoy each other, and where to draw the line. Bryant knew that if there had been a World Series in barging and door slamming then Deckard would be an unbeaten champion. Besides his bladerunner record, door-banging and scowling were amongst his other great talents. And you must always play to your talents.

Bryant was large and broad, which was not obvious when he was sat behind his desk. He wore a pale green shirt with what looked like a pattern of newspaper print all over it, and a plain brown tie. Everything old is always new, thought Deckard.

'I knew that if I'd asked you nicely, you'd never agree to return,' Bryant said, almost apologetically - almost.

Deckard didn't say anything. He maintained his scowl. Bryant gave a slight nod at the chair opposite him. 'That scowl of yours looks heavy. Take the weight off it. Take a seat.'

Deckard looked around the office, all the usual police-work clutter. A police radio quietly chattered and light flickered on Bryant's face from the monitor showing the real-time relays from the personal cam's of the officers out doing their rounds. For a moment he felt like he really missed it, but only for a moment. Gaff sauntered into the office. He and Bryant nodded to each other. He stood behind Deckard's shoulder, removed his hat and he stroked his forefinger over his pencil moustache.

Deckard glared at his old boss. 'What am I doing here?'

Deckard had been the kind of policeman who worked so close to the line he was often indistinguishabe from the criminals he spent his days running around after - when he wasn't sat in his office phoning and cutting deals with them; but he was a good Bladerunner, better than most, with fewer foul-ups, that is with fewer humans 'killed-in-error', when hunting the replicants.

'I need a Freelancer. Someone from outside the department. There are four fugitives, 'of a certain kind,' - "of a certain kind" was an unspoken police codeword for Replicants - said Bryant simply, stabbing his thumb generally in no particular direction, as though that was all that had to be said.

'Did you lose them?' Deckard asked sarcastically. 'Careless.'

'I need you to find them.'

'Somebody else's problem now. Not mine.' Deckard snorted. 'I repeat. What am I doing here?'

Bryant had been casual, friendly, in his greeting but he needed to get to the point. The smile on his face evaporated like a summer morning mist met by the dim and meagre light of the rising sun.

'C'mon Deckard. They're here for a reason. Reps always are. Assassination and replacement. Whenever there are a group of four skins on the street, y'know that's a problem for everyone, since we have no idea who they're after yet. And you...' he stabbed a finger at Deckard, 'you are a Bladerunner.'

'Here is a status update. Ex-Bladerunner. I'm retired.'

'There's no such thing,' Bryant said, 'Only Replicants get to be retired, nowadays - permanently; you know that more than anyone. I know all about your run-in with the councilman, but he's dead now, he's out of our hair, you can come back and continue like nothing had happened. Now will you SIT DOWN.'

Deckard relaxed and took the few steps over to the chair Bryant indicated and slumped onto it. His former boss reached into his desk drawer and drew out a bottle of whiskey in an octagonal bottle and a couple of hexagonal glasses. He placed the two glasses on the desk and unscrewed the cap. He shot a slight smile over at Deckard. No one else would have been able to perceive it.

'Get this,' he said lifting the bottle, 'This is a genuine blend of synth and 20% real scotch. Don't say I don't spoil you when you come a-visiting.'

Deckard snorted. 'And 80% what else?' he thought. He knew that too much industrial alcohol was finding its way into spirits, especially the generic sort, and even into the branded. Although he didn't usually mind a little 'industrial' in his spirits to keep the price down.

With Deckard now sat down, Gaff, who had remained in the doorway to ensure Deckard didn't walk straight right out on hearing about the job, moved over to the couch set against the back wall. An electric fan whirred in the corner. Bryant, having got his compliance immediately launched into the guts of the incident.

'This is what happened, there was a group on a scheduled off-Earth shuttle, from the Moon, Lincoln Hub-3. They didn't leave much, killed everyone on board. They were all Tyrell people, and InterSpace Mining management.'

Deckard creased his brow, 'That's strange. Reprisals?' He asked. 'For what happened to the 'Sparticists'?'

Bryant shrugged and poured a measure of the scotch in each glass. 'AX-Orbital Traffic Control couldn't get a verbal call-sign from them beyond the auto-detect. They'd set fire to the shuttle and came down using the emergency pod, just left the the burnt-out shell of the shuttle floating around in orbit. The emergency pod was found in the desert, all the identifier transponders ripped out, as expected.' Bryant gave a discreet nod in the direction of the south-east, to what had once been known as the badlands. 'It was at one of the illegal entry points, a smuggling port. Who knows where they are?'

'I don't. So what am I doing here?' he looked around in mock exasperation. 'Am I ever going to get an answer to my question.'

Bryant ignored Deckard's observation and continued. 'It wouldn't take a genius to work out where they're likely to head for. It was over a week ago, but we know they've made it to here to 'Frisco. The trail of bodies leads here, as usual.'

Deckard's expression had shifted from a scowl to neutral. Imagining possible scenarios. He reached forward and picked one of the glasses off the desk and said, 'That's got to be... awkward - for you. I know I would be embarrassed.'

'It's not that it's an embarrassment to the department, or anything like that. We don't make the laws, but we are saddled with the ones we have and with trying to uphold them, regardless of our personal views of the futility of such laws. To enter police work is to accept a good deal of futility in our working lives. Now, I'm going to tell you what is going to happen; you are gonna find 'em. Because that is what you do well. And it'll be like they were never here. No one will know.' Bryant's tone hardened. 'You will trace them, and you will airbrush them out, it will be as though they had never been here.'

'Back to square one,' said Deckard. 'I'm not in your employ anymore. Why don't you give the job to Don Holden?' Deckard looked around from where he sat, out to the open-plan office. 'Where is he, anyway?'

Bryant looked beyond Deckard's shoulder at Gaff, still sat against the back wall.

'I assigned the job to him,' Bryant said, he shifted the tone of his voice back to the casual tone reserved for grim news. 'He's now in hospital. He's still breathing, but only just, and only so long as those cables and tubes are in place. That's because of the big holes one of these skins made in his lungs. Holden's good, but he's not good enough. He's a bounty-hunting cowboy at heart. But we'll not see him bladerunning again, not after this. He'll be assigned a quiet desk job. I don't like the look of this one. They got to Earth, got past the off-Earth borderland security. That's bad enough, since we have a lot of security to keep them off-Earth, Tyrell too; but they keep trying. Every so often they succeed. They made it, they got through all that and have made it here, to 'Frisco. That ought to give you the chills. Since these have made it, how many others are here? Who knows? It's getting real bad out there Deck's. Never seems to get better. I'm running out of bladerunning options. And they keep coming. We've halted others before they get to Tyrell, but these managed to get another one inside.' He shifted his tone again somewhere between encouragement and ingratiating. 'I hate to have to say it, and you know how much I hate to have to say it. We need an old pro. Someone like you, Decks. This is a job that needs your certain eye, your certain aim, and your certain skill.'

'Well,' Deckard downed the scotch. 'I'm certain I don't need any more of this,' he said, 'I've done my stint. And it's not my problem anymore.' He ran his finger around the glass, and licked the very last drop of whiskey off his finger. 'Get someone else. Get someone else transferred in.'

Bryant shook his head. 'No. Not possible, I need experience. You. I can't be breaking in new stock at a time like this.'

'While its nice to be needed.' He set the whiskey glass back on the desktop. 'And, while it's nice to catch up with old times and the latest news...' He heaved himself out of the chair. 'Like I said, I don't work here anymore.' He flashed his old boss an expression that said, "do I have to state the obvious." He turned towards the door. 'I got out while I still had the use of MY lungs. It may not be pure air in 'Frisco but its still better than breathing with the aid of a respirator.' He flicked his eyes to indicate Gaff. 'And I still have full use of my legs,' he added. He rattled the door handle. 'Retired is easier on the nerves than any of this.'

Bryant's tone of voice hardened again, 'Wait. If you're not on the citizen-service roll, you're nobody. You know that.'

Jose Gaff stood up, and held his cane ready to strike Deckard.

'I'm getting by,' Deckard said casually over his shoulder as he opened the door.

'It can be made especially hard for you,' Bryant continued in his hardened tone of voice. 'Just you wait, pal. Let me see what you're packing nowadays.'

Deckard knew he was trapped. He turned slowly and faced Bryant again, he opened his jacket revealing the LzerLite Long-Barrelled in its deep holster and a Razr at his shoulder.

'You're still using those blunted hollow-points you favour?' Bryant said indicating the Razr.

'Of course.'

'Hmmmm,' Bryant said. 'They kill human fugitives who have been injured but would otherwise have lived, y'know. I don't mind turning a blind-eye when you're working for us, but I can make life especially hard for you, if old files, archived and long-forgotton, were reopened.'

Deckard stopped. He turned and glanced at Gaff. 'You're giving me no option. Is that it? What happened to freedom of choice?'

'Went out with the last war. Didn't you hear? Don't think of it as having no choice. Think of it as being the easier of the limited choices available,' Bryant said. He raised his voice, hardening it again, 'And those are the choices. Which is it to be?'

Deckard sat back in the seat.

'Let me show you something.' Bryant tapped on his remote and turned a screen round toward Deckard.

The interview that Holden had conducted with Leon Polokov came on screen. It was a split-screen view. One part showed Polokov's retinal response, one showed the reading from the 'empathic response' graphic and another view was from Holden's personal cam' view, showing Polokov full face.

'We can miss the first half,' Bryant said as he tapped on the screen to move it forward. 'It's the last part that's important.'

Deckard heard the voice of Holden giving a text book rendition of the questions, adding a little inflection to his voice. He heard the reply, agitation in the subjects voice, he didn't need to view the printout to know that. The testing apparatus gave out a steady beeping sound. Dave Holden's disembodied voice was explaining something to the subject. '...Since you ask, the questions are devised by others. I just read them, and read the response gauges. They're used to provoke a response...'

'Which they certainly did on this ocassion,' Bryant observed wryly.

Deckard reflected on the V-K Test. A series of various, carefully constructed, sets of questions utilising a flexible modular system designed for the practiced interviewer to cross-refer - to get to a conclusion.

Bryant said, 'Now watch this. Here we are. We got the company's overhead security camera view as well. Watch closely. I'll slow it to half-speed, it's easier to see what happened. It's so fast, it's easy to miss it.' The recording showed the subject of the test move his arm swiftly and shoot Holden under the table. The swivel chair span round and Holden slumped against the back wall. The test-subject stood and moved to stand over Holden. He fired three more times. The subject pressed the gun down into his waistband and pulled his paper overalls up to conceal it.

'Did I pass your test?' he asked sardonically as he turned away and left the room.

'When I first saw it,' Bryant said, 'I didn't see how the test subject even got the first shot off, it was so fast.'

The archive ran on. The screen was now blank except for a view in the retinal response segment, which showed the back wall of the cubicle, the 'empathic response' graphic was a straight line since Polokov had ripped the electrode pads off, and the other segment, showing the view from Holden's personal button cam, showed a piece of carpet and skirting board. It also showed the shoes of the office workers as they had come into the cubicle sometime after the gunshots, and then their faces, briefly, as they had turned Don Holden over onto his back and then back onto his side. There was nothing to see, only the sounds of their voices.

\- 'What happened?

\- 'It was Leon Polokov.'

\- 'Who's that?'

\- 'He's new here.'

\- 'Not another one. _Again_?'

\- 'They say there are hardly any here, so how come there are so many shootings like this? They can't all be angry ex-employees. Besides Polokov had just started working here. Never been employed by the firm before. What did he have to be angry about? I'm beginning to have doubts about some of the things we get told around here...'

\- 'He was called in, he'd only been in there a few minutes when there were shots. Then he came out. Not running, but fleeing fast.'

\- '...they say it is just routine testing... but who shoots someone if its just routine...?'

\- 'Do you know what the testing is all about? I heard it's about finding Reps, they're here on-Earth, even though they're not supposed to be...'

\- 'Are you sure?'

\- 'That's what I heard. I overheard a cop talking about it.'

\- 'Don't turn him on his back! Never move a victim until the medic's arrive.'

\- 'But he's bleeding, we've got to do something to stop the bleeding.'

\- 'That's what lesion colagulent is for. There's some in that box over there. Go and get it...'

\- '...stop crying and start helping!'

The voices continued. At least one of them continually sobbing. Then, eventually, voices were heard saying, 'How do you switch this thing off.' - 'Leave it. It's not important.' - Another voice said, 'I think it's this button here, isn't it?'

The screen went blank and silent.

'I guess Don Holden's natural charm didn't work on this occasion,' Deckard observed mordantly.

'The man's in hospital,' Bryant said.

'Yeah,' was all Deckard said.

Bryant leant across the desk toward Deckard and gave him more detail. 'Before this latest incident at Tyrell we know of those slaughtered on the shuttle that brought them in. There are others who have been killed in the usual cold-bloodied, replicant way, but we can't be certain this group were responsible. I have a team on that; but we know they are now _here_. There were originally six, three male, three female. They may have met up with others. We don't know. Holden's shooting might've been this group's first shooting here on-Earth. We just can't be certain, but I doubt it. We're still trying to ascertain their movements since they arrived. What we do know is that three nights ago there was an attempt to enter Tyrell Corp premises.'

'Yeah,' said Deckard., 'I've been reading about it. They're like salmon going back to their spawning grounds!'

'Or homing pigeons. Something's drawing them back. I knew you're weren't really out of the bladerunning game, Decks. I shouldn't have had to twist your arm.'

''Game?' snorted Deckard. 'It ceased being that a while aback. Besides, reading about it isn't the same as wanting to do anything about it.' he added. 'You ARE twisting my arm.'

'Someone has to. Let's get back to business. Four of them are the latest versions, with a couple of older ones. Two were done to a crisp by the security field they use up there at Tyrell, to stop precisely this kind of event - and I mean fried... you should've seen them. On second thoughts, you wouldn't have wanted to see it. They were cooked! The Reps couldn't have known that it had been installed since the last incident. Older models y'see, they weren't of the type that are insulated against it. They could have been used as decoys. The more like us they make these things to look, the more unike us they get, they're getting close to being indestructable. By the time we got there, as you'd expect, they had long-since disappeared.' Bryant paused. 'Now, Tyrell have created these newer models, they weren't fried, but we have evidence they _did_ get in and...'

'Huh? You're talking about the Nexus-Six's? I thought Tyrell were only allowed to produce their earlier models since the whole debacle with...'

'Exactly,' Bryant said emphatically. 'And that is a very sore point with the department, as I hardly need to tell you. These ones are proto-types, so they say. When have god-like Corporations the size of Tyrell been bound by mere human law? And with an on-going off-World programme to supply. These new ones have flesh, organs, muscle. They claim they are a complete emulation of living flesh. Anyway, they're the ones that got away.'

Deckard scowled.

Bryant shut off the monitor screen, now that the after-events of Holden's shooting had finished running. He leaned closer toward Deckard, 'Anyway, I sent Holden up there to apply the Voight-Kampff on the latest in-take of staff.'

'You're still using that test?' Deckard asked.

'The test we use now is a revision on the one you last used, but essentially it's the same; you'll see. I wanted the latest in-take of new staff - those taken on since the last shooting - to be tested, aganst the union's wishes. I figure they'd try and infiltrate again. Afterall, it keeps on happening. They'd pass the entry test there, after all. Looks like he found one.' Bryant caught the irony in what he had just said. 'More correctly, it got him.

'Or a very angry worker,' added Deckard.

'No. We know it was _him_,' Bryant said indicating the screen, as an image came on it. 'It's given identifier, name, is Leon Polokov, its taken the identity of a sergeant in the 32nd, your old regiment, but has been assigned as an ammunition loader on one of Tyrell's defence craft. I don't mind these private armies as long as they keep them off-Earth. I'm more than happy to have Earth kept as a war-free nature reserve - if the nature actually ever grows back - but do you think it'll ever happen? With four geo-political blocs all competing against each other for resources, the defence craft are needed. All that work and money squandered on S.D.I. paid-off eventually, eh? What about that! Polokov was on one of their Intergalactic...'

Deckard snorted and smiled, 'Intergalactic! They don't even get to the edge of the solar system...'

'Yeah. That's marketing for you. As you can see, it's a combat auxillery, obviously. Able to lift and carry 400 pound loads, twenty four hours a day. It shot Don, but could just as easily have crushed his windpipe, or his skull. Don didn't stand a chance. This one is beyond hurting...'

'You can't hurt him? Not even if you comment on his terrible hair?' Deckard said sarcastically.

'It's a known shooter; when you encounter this one, you've got to _kill_ it.'

Deckard took the remote out of Bryant's hand and ran the recording back. He freeze-framed the image of Leon Polokov, with his retinal image and 'empathic response' graphic, at the moment before shooting.

'Did Don get a reading on him? On its empathic response.'

'He didn't get that far,' said Bryant. 'As you saw. Or, at least, he is in no fit state to tell us, if he did. I'm not expecting him to remember anything about what happened.'

'I'd like to take the Voight-Kampff data so I can conduct my own analysis.'

'Sure you can. But I'd prefer you to be in pursuit. There's something else...' Bryant indicated to Deckard that he wanted to beam information over to him. 'This is the information we got from off-Earth. They told us about the escapees, belatedly. If they had told us earlier perhaps the shootings could have been prevented. Possible culapibility, but that'll be for the D.A. to decide. The Replicants have either laid very low until this move on Tyrell Corp or they've blended seamlessly.'

'Without analysing its empathic response my gut says this is human. A pissed-off worker. Gone 'postal'.'

'But he'd only been there a few days. Fits perfectly with his recent arrival.'

'But Tyrell Corp is always hiring, the turnover is so high that they must take on new workers all the time.'

'Holden passed the first one he interviewed. Then came Polokov.'

Deckard looked up from the screen, a puzzled expression swept across his face for a moment. 'I've been reading about these shootings. Does anyone know why they're coming to Earth. That is next-door to unknown for skins to do that. No one seems to be asking that question, because no one knows - other than the rumours - that the Replicants are even here. Think of it from a Replicants point-of-view. What has the dangers of coming to Earth, and all these attempts to work their way inside Tyrell Corporation got to offer, that a nice quiet life on a Jovian moon base couldn't beat?'

'I just know that they've been doing it a lot. Every time some of them get to Earth they head, sooner, rather than later for Tyrell. Why they're doing it, is something for you to discover on behalf of the Department, if you can. We _need _the intelligence, otherwise we will always be floundering in their wake. It'd be better if you could get in with them somehow.'

Deckard looked away from the screen momentarily. 'I'm here under duress. That's why I'm here.'

'Tyrell Corp have been unusually helpful. Let me show you this.' Bryant started to move his hands around on the screen, 'This is what we have on the others. Take a good look at these.'

A head appeared on-screen and rotated around 360 degrees on the vertical axis. It was a large head without hair and a colourless face with a broad forehead, it had white eyes with no retina or pupil, the only feature that stood out was the strong jawline. There was a black block over the bottom of the screen.

'What am I looking at?' Deckard asked.

'A scary sight, when they're like this,' Bryant said. 'These are the basic templates of each of the other proto-types. Tyrell have given us these. They're redacted, hence the block of black at the bottom of the screen; it's commercial-in-confidence data, apparently. This is the first. This is the appearance of the base models as they come off the line, or whatever it is Tyrell do. These are the foundations upon which all the varients will be based.'

'So they're not producing them at the moment?'

'Not so far. Or, so they say. They say that the escapee's are pre-production test models. But, who knows?'

'Yeah! If _these_ weren't supposed to be produced, how many others were produced too? None were supposed to be being made.' Deckard stopped and asked, referring to the spinning head on the screen. 'And the Corporation that never does more than the bare minimum when dealing with any of the authorities, freely furnished you with these?'

'That's right. Eldon Tyrell himself.'

'Eldon Tyrell!' Deckard exclaimed and gave a whistle under his breath. 'God Almighty. In person?'

'Not in person. No one knows if he really exists,' Bryant said sardonically. 'A conference call was set-up, from above, the Governor's office. We did speak, briefly, on the VOICe system. Then he passed me onto his assistant.' Bryant looked around and leant in toward Deckard, and covered his mouth so that neither the surveillance cam or mic could pick up what he said. 'A very attractive young woman. But don't tell anyone I said so...' He leant back out as he added. 'It was all on his direct authority.'

'And yet they're usually so reluctant to offer any information if they can help it.'

'That's right! Do you think they're worried? They must feel like they're under attack.'

'It's _us_ who are under attack!' Deckard observed.

'That's right,' said Bryant, he nodded at the head spinning around on the screen. 'This here is a sub-model, serial number N7MAA2192-3167, for what it's worth. Assigned as security as it's primary, and for combat. Optimised for self-directed goal-orientated tasks... '

'Made for security and combat? They're not supposed to be...'

'That's the way it is, Decks,' Bryant shot him a resigned expression. 'This is what it has become like since you were here last time. And when you're bigger than god, this is what you do. We have been told that this one has been assigned the I.D. of Roy Baty. It's the foundation of the Type. They don't look very different to the Zeit or earlier NeXus generations on-screen. But we're told that the difference is obvious up-close. The differences are not just in the appearance but in the touch, and how they interact. I'll come back to that. But this one here, we've been told it is blue-eyed, but he could have a Fu Manchu moustache for all I know.'

'Not much help. He could wear contacts or retinal inplants in any colour or pattern,' observed Deckard.

'Unlike Polokov, this one has a distinctive appearance.'

'Yeah. You wouldn't miss this one in a crowd. Do you have a chassis image?'

'They didn't let us have that. They did say that the bodywork can be anywhere between 6 feet and 6 feet 6 inches. Body shape and build is from type B3 to A1. This one is probably the leader,' Bryant said and gave a half smile. 'Now for the others,' Bryant moved his finger across the screen. Another head appeared and started to spin on its axis. 'Another Nexus-Six, obviously. Serial number N7FAB72327. The I.D. is Zhora. No second name given. Though it is difficult to tell with these facial features it is female. Possibly this one is used with either male or female chassis. Assigned to a three-personnel assassination kick-kill squad; useful for off-Earth environments when ammunition cannot be used. Nothing to look at here, but I've seen an image of a fully-realised, worked-up model. As maninish as this template looks, with the hair and make-up done in various ways it's obviously intended to be seductive. Depending on the chassis this one could be either beauty... or the beast. Look out for this one, she's clearly both.'

'You sound like the brochure,' Deckard observed.

'All the sales-talk starts to rub-off on you when you've around it for as long as I've been.'

Deckard leaned back from looking at the screen and said, 'Next.'

Bryant slid a finger across the screen. Another spinning, floating head. This one, in its base template mode was much more feminine in its appearance. High, well defined cheekbones, lean jawline and chin, full lips and wide mouth. Beautiful.

'These are all NeXus-Six's. This one is serial number N6FAB61416c. The latest type of Pleasure model, a prostitute-stroke-porn actress. Convincing, isn't it? Goes by the name of Priscilla Stratton. Believe it or not this a male-female as well, depending on the secondary characteristics that are added later. Assigned to civilian flights and especially on the long duration journeys to the outer system and on the remote boroughs and stations.'

Deckard leaned in again, to look closely.

'I'll beam GIFs of these spinning templates to your Tab that gives you the all-around appearance to show around to anyone you need to question about them,' Bryant said. 'There's something you need to know about the ones that have been introduced since you last worked for us. It's something Tyrell have been keeping to themselves. It was obvious they were reluctant to reveal it. You're gonna love this,' Bryant said, knowing that his sarcasm wouldn't be lost on Deckard. 'They're now designed to emulate our behaviour _in every detail_...'

'In _every_ detail...?'

'That's right. It aids the empathic acceptance by us simple-minded hu...'

'I'm not surprised. Easier to get close to us, and kill us,' interrupted Deckard. 'I mean, kill the selected target.'

'Maybe,' Bryant said. Again he leant in close and covered his mouth and said very quietly. 'Probably. I guess you could say that but I can't, not in my position,' Bryant indicated his office. 'I'm no longer allowed to express a professional judgement, it seems.' He leant out again and recommenced talking at usual conversational volume. 'Anyway, this is Tyrell Corp's latest big idea. These copy humans in everything. They're designed to learn from interaction, just as a child learns. I've been informed, in confidence, that the designer's can't even be certain that, after constant interaction, they wouldn't develop emotional responses as well. Anything you can feel, they'll be able to feel too. It's the next form of A.I., it's known as Artificial-Incarnation. They mirror the person they meet. That indicates the rate of change that is taking place, doesn't it? It aids the empathic acceptance by us. It might be fear, or hate, jealousy.'

'Even love?' Deckard queried.

'Even love.'

'There are a lot of people who can't emulate that, let alone be sincere...'

'Yeah. But given enough time, if you can feel it, it will be able to emulate it too.'

Deckard gave a low whistle.

'Yeah, how about that? Impressed? You ought _not_ to be. I think it's scary. Anyway, as a consequence, the IRC has required them to build-in another fail-safe device.'

'And that is?'

'They must have a life limit. At that time-limit, which is now set at only four years, the drug-pack embedded within them which keeps their organs from rejecting becomes exhausted, and they start to slowly die.'

'Is that right? No matter what they do, they can never get that organ rejection fixed. And that is after only four years?'

'Uh-huh,' Bryant confirmed.

'Little wonder they're pissed off, at least, they would be if they knew about it. Do they know about it?' Deckard asked.

'Who knows? That's a commercial secret.'

'But they've really had to take the life-span down to only four years, by the IRC? So they'll have to be replaced even more often than they are now! That can only help sales; I sometimes wonder whose side the IRC is on, not that it is my concern anymore,' Deckard said. 'But how will Voight-Kampff work on a model that _could_ learn _real_ emotions as if it is really feeling them. If I can't administer the test, why am I here?' Deckard spread his arms wide, indicating the precinct building.

'Oh that is alright; it is reckoned that the Test will still work, for now. But otherwise, this a hunt-and-kill mission.'

'But I need to know its a Replicant, not a human lookalike.'

'Honest, simple police work. That will be the real test you'll be administering this time. The old way. If you can't be sure of your ID, don't shoot!'

'Hunt-and-kill AND don't shoot. Any other helpful advice?'

Bryant gave a half smile. 'What can I say? That's about it, Decks. No one said it would be easy.'

'But does it have to be deliberately made to be this hard? This difficult?' Deckard asked, not expecting an answer from Bryant.

A heli-craft's headlights, flying low - too low - shone its bright beams of light through the window of Bryant's office, as it rounded a corner. Bryant squinted and shielded his eyes.

'Seems odd, don't it?' Bryant said. 'I've been told that they're designed that way, with the fail-safe, so that they _don't_ develop real emotional responses. So they will still be detectable to the test. Those Tyrell people are real helpful like that. Always thinking of us at the SFPD, and you bladerunner's especially.' Bryant raised a sceptical eyebrow as Deckard looked at him. 'You believe it if you want to. I can't see that any kind of fail-safe will last for long; then, who knows what these things will be capable of. They must be kinda developing like humans once did. After all, why do _we_ have empathy? We could kill more easily if we were more like wild creatures, more like how we once were. Do you think a wildcat feels anything for its prey?'

'That's too deep for me, boss. I'm just a simple Bladerunner.' Deckard said.

'That's more like it, Decks. Good to have you back with us, fighting against the assholes!'

'If they're so new, where am I going to get a subject to calibrate the test on the new models?' Deckard asked.

'Don't worry about it. The department isn't expecting you to go after any of this escape group immediately. Not without some preparation. You may think we're a bunch of bastards, but we're not that bad.' Bryant looked down momentarily and looked at Deckard again. 'The Tyrell Corporation have a Nexus-Six at their head office. I want you to get out there and apply the Test. Who knows, we might be lucky and still get a reading on it. There will be humans as part of the group you test, so there's a lot rding on you getting a reading.'

'No pressure then,' Deckard said ironically.

'That's right. As usual, no pressure. At least this one will be 'tame', it won't be able to shoot you.'

'But what if the test no longer...?' Deckard let his question peter out.

Bryant didn't answer, his eyes slid away from Deckard's. Deckard noted the non-response and answered his own question. If the test doesn't work, then we will _all, _Bladerunner, SF police department _and_ citizen, have a big problem. And then we'll have to get used to Replicants all over the place, replacing _us_, all of us. Eventually. It was an ugly realisation.

-o-

No one gets paid for writing this kind of fiction. The only reward is in people's reactions to the story, if any. You don't have to leave a review, but you don't have to be shy about doing so either.

Does this version of the story work? Does it add anything to the original? Did you enjoy reading it?

If you did like this, you might like these other Bladerunner AD1982 stories - because the film is so different from the original book, I have written the following novelisation of the film in six parts.

Simply type Bladerunner into the search box, followed by the title of each part, from the list below, and that ought to direct you to that title alone.

Part I. No More Blue Skied Days (Holden's interview, through to Deckard being reassigned to Bladerunning),

Part II. Memories Are Made Of This (Deckard's visit to Tyrell's, to Rachel's visit to his apartment),

Part III. Pris, For Your Pleasure (Pris makes contact with JF Sebastien, and Deckard's pursuit and shooting of Zhora),

Part IV. How To Reform Biology Into Mechanics (Deckard's fight with Leon, through to Roy Batty's arrival at JF's apartment),

Part V. The Slow Death Of A Fast Living Replicant (Batty's killing of Tyrell, through to the 'retirement' of Pris),

Part VI. Fatal Error (the pursuit and retirement of Roy B, Deckard's escape with Rachel).

PLUS; Bladerunner AD2049; Beauty Without Compromise - Such Savage Beauty

A short filling-out of an episode in the film BladeRunner A.D.2049, when Deckard is confronted with Wallace's reincarnation of Rachel.

'Deckard heard the stilettos sound sharply on the marble floor, he turned and saw her, in silhouette, as he had the first time. As she emerged into light she was as beautiful as ever. But it was all so long ago. It was disconcerting to be confronted with this re-creation...'


End file.
